


sweet like victory

by mlraven



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Candy, Candy-eating contests, Canon-typical cultural appropriation by Gina, Ensemble Cast, F/F, Found Family, Halloween, Halloween Candy, Halloween parties, M/M, Nerdiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-27 23:42:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16229744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mlraven/pseuds/mlraven
Summary: It's a Halloween party at the Nine Nine! Can a candy-eating contest match the typical dramatics of the Halloween Heist?





	sweet like victory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flipflop_diva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/gifts).



> Happy Trick or Treat! This is for your candy-eating contest prompt.
> 
> HUGE thanks to Wiccy for the initial beta/feedback that made this story a Real Boy, not just a bag of jumbled scenes. <3

Later, no one can remember how it started.

Maybe it was when Jake dared Terry to eat the twins’ entire candy haul. Maybe it was when Gina bet him that Iggy could bring in more than Cagney and Lacey combined. Maybe it was when Charles boasted that Nikolaj—

Regardless, it ended like this.

 

Somehow, the entire crew ends up in the break room, clustered around a table piled with enough sugar to make Captain Holt giggle.

Gina arrives an hour and a half before the official invitation time to account for Amy’s chronic earliness condition.

She eyes the break room; it’s already decorated (badly) in the universal, tacky cardboard-and-plastic holiday decorations that all offices seem to use at the first sign of anything vaguely exciting.

There are droopy orange and black crepe-paper streamers, a few underinflated pumpkin balloons, and a cardboard cutout of what Gina supposes is meant to be a ghost, though to her, just looks like a stylized white oval missing its bottom.

When there was first talk of a Halloween get-together (Gina can’t call this a _party_ ), she briefly considered trying to improve the decor, until she remembered that none of these heathens would give the decor— or her— their due.

Instead, she dumps out a wholesale-club-sized box of assorted candy and calls it a day. She’s already liberated all the blue Tootsie Rolls, so the rest is up for grabs. She pulls out her phone and sits down, betting with herself on Amy’s arrival time.

 

Amy is only fifteen minutes early, which Gina attributes to the fact that she swore she wouldn’t be participating. Sparkle Gina was closest with her guess of eighteen minutes, so Wolf Gina and Beyonce Gina have to pay up.

Amy’s contribution is a package of slightly dusty-looking black licorice shoelaces.

Gina immediately takes a photo of her holding the licorice, fingers speeding over her phone. “I can’t believe she actually did it,” she mutters to herself.

“I can hear you, you know,” Amy butts in, putting her hands on her hips.

“Caption: actual dinosaur Amy Santiago, caught in her natural habitat,” Gina narrates. “Aaand, posted,” she says, lowering her phone with a dramatic flourish.

Amy tries to defend her choice of candy to an unimpressed Gina. “They’re healthier than the red kind, and _no_ , they’re not covered in mold! Seriously, Gina, the dusty bit is just a light coating of flour to keep them from sticking together! I’m not a grandmother, I just like the taste!”

Gina nods distractedly, already texting again.

“Guess what RL antique granny Amy Santiago brought…”

 

Rosa brings an industrial-sized jar stuffed full of mini packets of Sour Patch Kids, which she unceremoniously clunks down next to Amy’s package of licorice.

Jake pauses on his way into the room, mouth opening in shock.

“Are those… Sour Patch Kids? Rosa?!”

Rosa raises an eyebrow, daring him to comment.

Jake splutters for a moment, unable to form recognizable words.

“What, you can’t take them?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Oh, it is _on,_ Rosa,” he says. “I can take them. I can eat all of them!” he announces, forgetting everything at the hint of a challenge.

Rosa smirks.

“Why don’t you start with one, and we’ll go from there.”

Jake huffs and busies himself with retrieving his contribution; several bags of fun-size Kit Kats.

Gina leans over to get a closer look, straightening up and fixing Jake with a look.

“What?” he says defensively. “I’m broke, and the jingle gets stuck in my head this time of year.”

“Too bad my adoring fans are too young to appreciate it,” Gina says, going back to tweeting.

 

Terry comes in looking slightly worried.

“Cagney and Lacey aren’t feeling well, and I’m worried they’re going to miss trick-or-treating tomorrow night. What do I do?!”

Jake stands on his tiptoes and slings an arm around Terry’s shoulders.

“Tonight, don’t do anything about it. It’s candy-eatin' time!”

Terry still looks worried.

When Jake finally releases him and goes to bother Amy about her candy, Rosa casually leans in to say in an undertone, “If they’re sick tomorrow, I know a place to go that will make it up to them. But you can’t tell anyone I told you.”

Terry blinks, surprised at the offer, though not at the threat.

He nods, lowering his voice to match hers, “I’d appreciate that.”

Terry reaches into his bag and pulls out a package of yoghurt-covered pretzels.

Everyone groans.

“Te _rry,_ ” Gina whines, setting her phone down to put her hands on her hips. “You were supposed to bring _candy,_ not health-nut boring snacks.”

Terry puts a protective hand on the bag of pretzels, as if he’s worried Gina will try something.

“This is candy! It’s got pretzels in it— full of salt and fat, and the yoghurt isn't real, it’s mostly sugar! You can’t tell me that something that has _nineteen grams_ of sugar per serving _isn’t candy_!”

Gina sighs.

 

When Charles arrives with a platter of crystallized animal fat— “It’s a sampler of artisanal candied meats!”— Gina throws up her hands.

“Why do I even _try?_ ” she asks the ceiling mournfully.

 

Surprisingly, it’s Captain Holt who restores Gina’s faith in humanity. Well, to be specific, it’s Kevin, but they’re married, so they’re basically the same person.

Holt brings a single, giant bar of 99% cocoa dark chocolate, which Amy and Terry excitedly cluster around.

Kevin quietly adds his contribution to the table while Jake whines about how bitter Holt’s chocolate is.

Kevin’s brought several large bars of Toblerone, and Gina’s eyes light up when she sees them.

“Finally, someone who _gets_ this!” she exclaims. “Why did I even invite all these chumps, if they can’t _grok the concept_.”

Kevin inclines his head and moves back to stand next to his husband.

Rosa looks over at Gina, flicking her gaze up and down Gina’s body.

“You know Heinlein?” she asks in an undertone.

Gina lowers her phone, a sly smile spreading across her face.

“I know a lot of things, Rosa. You might be surprised.”

As she raises her phone again, she thinks she sees a flash of heat in Rosa’s eyes.

 

An hour in finds Charles holding forth on the many ways sugarcane is processed, and how the different crystalline structures change the final taste of the candy.

Hitchcock and Scully, who appeared at some point as if summoned by the mere concept of food, are the only ones listening to Charles. Scully is even eating the candied pig’s ears from Charles’s platter as Hitchcock makes a sandwich with two yoghurt-covered pretzels.

Amy, out of some morbid curiosity and/or a temporary memory lapse, asks how they can possibly eat them. She realizes her mistake when Hitchcock delightedly tells her about how they’re like the best parts of dinner, all rolled into one— the meat from the pizza, _and_ the ice cream from dessert!

She grimaces and retreats to find someone else to talk to.

 

Amy ends up discussing classic candies with Kevin. He agrees that the old-fashioned taste of black licorice is nostalgic and wonderful, and that its more complex taste is fascinating to savor.

When she asks what candy he brought, he admits, with some chagrin, that he has a special place in his heart for Toblerone, regardless of its sugar content. He tells her how, when he was a child, his mother brought them back for him from her research trips to European archives.

Amy smiles, envisioning a young Kevin waiting anxiously for both the chocolate and his mother’s stories about what she learned.

She asks how he reacted when Toblerone made their controversial shape changes, and Kevin lights up. He expounds on the egregious decision: how removing the peaks was tantamount to betrayal; how Mondelēz prioritized profits over loyalty; how the scourge of capitalism ruins everything.

Raymond watches his husband and his protege from a few steps back, and if his expression betrays his fondness, well, only Kevin might notice.

 

When Jake finally challenges Rosa to a Sour Patch Kids-off, it draws a crowd.

Charles abandons his gourmet animal testicles to stand behind Jake. Gina watches from the sidelines, phone already recording. Terry and Hitchcock and Scully cluster around to gawk at them. Even Amy and Kevin turn towards them, though they don’t come over.

Rosa looks him over, raising her eyebrows. “Okay, Peralta. If you really want to do this, we can do this,” she says, cracking her knuckles. She pulls out a chair and sits, legs spread casually.

Jake rushes to sit opposite her, the jar on the table between them like Mount Everest.

Gina thinks it’s like a Western, with two cowboys squaring off over the last jug of water in a parched landscape. She already knows how she’ll edit her recording for Instagram: sepia filter, with classic Western music in the background.

Jake meets Rosa’s unimpressed stare over the jar, holding it for barely fifteen seconds before he breaks.

“Okay, I can’t take this, let’s just eat the candy,” he says, sticking a hand into the jar and grabbing several packets. He hurriedly yanks his hand back and rips open a packet, sending Sour Patch Kids flying. One of them lands on Scully’s arm, and he picks it up.

“Ooh, candy,” he says, popping it in his mouth.

Charles puts his hands on Jake’s shoulders, leaning over him to shout disparagements at Rosa. “You’ve got this, Jake! You can eat them all, I know you can!”

Gina zooms in on Charles’s hands where they’re almost white-knuckled on Jake’s shoulders.

Rosa raises an eyebrow at Charles before moving at a normal pace to pull out her share. She holds eye contact with Jake as she purposefully tears open her first packet. She puts the candy into her mouth one-by-one with no visible reaction to the citric acid coating.

Gina pans her phone, being sure to capture Rosa’s stoicism, before turning to get Jake in the frame. This is where the magic happens.

As Gina predicted, Jake takes a different tack. He manages to open his second packet without losing as many candies, and immediately starts shoving them in his mouth. Gina zooms in on his mouth.

“Ahh! Ahh! My thongue! Ith’s thso thsour!” Jake frantically fans his hands in front of his mouth, as if getting air on the problem will solve it.

Gina doesn’t even try to stifle her cackling; just tries to stay upright as she captures his hysterics. She quickly pans to capture Rosa’s indifference before turning back to Jake.

Rosa’s continued to place the gummies on her tongue, staring at Jake as he visibly debates whether or not to spit out his mouthful.

He waffles for a moment before grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair and violently ejecting a ball of partially-chewed candies and drool. He pants for a moment, still bent over the jacket. Gina is laughing so hard she almost drops her phone.

When Jake straightens up, Rosa is somehow still eating steadily. She raises an eyebrow at him.

“Uncle, uncle!” he says, raising his hands in surrender. “I don’t know why I thought I could out-badass you, Rosa, but I’ve learned my lesson.”

Gina snorts. “Sure, until the next time you challenge her. You should remember; Rosa never loses.”

Rosa smirks as she sets down her candies.

“So, what’s my prize?”

 

The next morning, Gina wakes suddenly as Iggy jumps onto the bed, throwing her small arms around Gina’s waist. Gina opens her eyes and mumbles something approximately friendly.

Satisfied that she’s awake, Iggy retreats to the foot of the bed to babble excitedly. As she tells Gina about how _amazing_ trick-or-treating with Milton was, and how she was the _best_ knight-firefighter-ballerina _ever,_ Gina notices an extra body in the bed.

She lifts the jumble of dark hair beside her to reveal Rosa, who grumbles and tries to mash her face further into her pillow.

Gina’s not entirely sure how she got here— last night is kind of blurry— but she’s not objecting.

Iggy notices the movement and decides that Rosa’s awake, bouncing over to her and hurling herself down on her back like Rosa is her new favorite pillow.

“Auntie Rosa! You’re here! Did you go trick-or-treating with G-Mom last night? What did you dress up as? How much candy did you get? Do you want to see my costume?”

Gina stifles a laugh as she watches Rosa crack open one eyelid, trying to figure out whether the squirming thing on top of her needs attention or whether she can just go back to sleep.

Rosa’s spirit animal is definitely a dragon, Gina muses, watching her excavate an arm from under the duvet to grab hold of Iggy with.

Iggy shrieks with laughter as Rosa tickles her, her mouth twitching in amusement. Gina goes through the list in her head— loves sleep; outwardly grumpy; mysterious; fiercely protective of those she loves. Check, check, check, and check.

While Gina’s been daydreaming, it seems Rosa and Iggy have come to an agreement. Gina watches as Rosa lifts Iggy up and sets her carefully on her shoulders, aware of her precious cargo.

“Onward, faithful Rosa!” Iggy cries, pointing an imperious finger at the door. “To breakfast!”

“Yes, Knight Iggy,” Rosa responds, something akin to fondness in her tone.

When they reach the door, Rosa turns back toward Gina.

“Go back to sleep, we’re making you a surprise,” she says, voice and face soft, devoid of their public masks. As she turns back around, Gina swears she sees Rosa wink at her.

That settles it; there’s no way she’s going back to sleep _now._

 


End file.
